into the dark
by sruoh
Summary: "He grabs her hand and places it against the swell of his cheek, and he breathes. She is cold, like the snow; her fingertips were always cold, he remembers that." eren & mikasa /au


_I KNOW I SHOULDN'T BE STARTING SOMETHING BUT I WROTE THIS AND I CAN'T GET IT OUT OF MY HEAD. It'll probably be two chapters long anyway. eren/mikasa au because I still love them with all my heart, and I just want to get this thing finished, especially after reading chapter 50 eeee. I've been writing this for over a month and neglecting everything else oops._

_Next chapter will be up whenever, school is giving me zero time to write, unfortunately._

_I do not own SNK ect ect_

* * *

He grabs her hand, and kisses it. She laughs, soft and quiet, like the falling snow, he thinks.

He grabs her hand and places it against the swell of his cheek, and he breathes. She is cold, like the snow; her fingertips were always cold, he remembers that. Nights spent under the cover of the sheets, laughing and giggling with the taste of champagne on their tongues. She had grazed her fingers under the curve of his knee and he had yelped in return.

Even if her fingertips were cold, she was like the sun. She was a star, the space in between the curves of her body were like the universe. He wanted to explore every single part, taste his way across the expanse of her body. Learn every side of her, the good and the bad and launch himself, head first into what made up Mikasa Ackerman.

He speaks into her palm, suddenly, kisses the lines scrawled onto them.

"Remember the day we met?"

She does.

_Eren Jaeger was nine years old. The sun was starting to hide itself against the earth, resting against the horizon, and he was beginning to make his way home from Armin's house. Snow, trampled by the feet of many others, still crunched beneath the sole of his little brown boots his mother specifically picked for this kind of day._

_A red scarf wrapped securely around his neck fluttered behind him._

_Then, he saw her._

_He would've missed her if he blinked. The only thing that contrasted was her black hair, like the night sky. The rest of her was pale. Pale skin, pale, white dress, she might've looked like a ghost any other time. _

_She was crying, into her small little hands. Her shoulders shook and her black hair swept over her eyes and she wept like the sky had opened up, like it was April._

_He stood there, not sure what to do. He was nine, after all. He only thought of the next cool thing he could do. Ride down the slope of the hill, wind and snow rushing past his ears, or the cold nipping at his nose as he rolled a ball for the next snowman. _

_However, he thought it would be a mighty fine thing if she was there too._

_He did what any other person would have done. He grabbed her hand and looked in her eye and said-_

"That was the first day I fell in love with you."

"Really?" Her smile is crooked, like the orbit of the moon around the earth. She pulls him in.

"Of course."

"So, Eren, what do you mean by the first day?"

Eren smiles, wide and large, all teeth with just a little bit of tongue and he laughs. "Oh? I thought you knew."

"Knew what?"

He lets go of her hands, still small but so strong, so steady under the weight of his body as she comes to rest them on his chest, as he leans over and places a chaste kiss on her cheek.

"Every single day, I fall in love with you more."

She looks up, eyes wide as she-

_blinked; the young girl blinked and Eren is startled. She was amazingly pretty. Almost as pretty as his mom, even. Tears continued to roll down her pink cheeks, but she spoke, her voice quiet._

_"What did you say?"_

_Eren pulls a face, not wanting to repeat himself. "I said are you lost?"_

_She nods once, twice, and before she could do it a third time Eren drops the scarf around her neck, making her jump slightly. It's warm._

_"There, you can't go around wearing a dress when it's winter time. Aren't you cold?"_

_She goes to nod, once more, her head bobbing up and down like a doll but Eren dismisses her with a wave of a hand._

_"Whatever. Come on, let's bring you to my house, and we'll do figure out where your mommy and daddy are, okay?"_

_The girl wipes away her stray tears and tries to smile. "Okay."_

_Eren grabs the girl's hand, which were cold, and he noted that he should ask his mom to make them some hot chocolate, something to warm them up, especially the strange girl with the pretty hair and pretty eyes._

_She hides her blush beneath the red of the scarf, but opens her mouth and-_

Kisses him, soft and shy, like the brush of a snowflake as it melts away and she's smiling, brighter than a star. She has seen everything that Eren Jaeger had to offer, had seen him bare and open and arms wide as he took her in, but she was still bright red as she hid her face under the covers of the blanket. Mikasa spoke, voice quiet but strong, and Eren has to bring himself in closer to hear what she had to say.

"Hm? Mikasa, speak up, I know you're louder than that."

And oh, he does know. Nights where she'd pull him in and crash their lips together and the lines and bumps and dips of their bodies fit just right so they don't even have to think, just do.

Eren Jaeger winked, but Mikasa probably wouldn't have seen it. She still smacks him playfully for good measure, the blanket softening the blow so it only felt like a little nudge.

"_I want to marry you._" She says. This time, it's loud and clear and it's only slightly muffled by the cotton that separates them.

Eren is silent for a moment, and she's worried that what she had said was too soon, too intimate, not formal enough. She opens her mouth to speak again but the blanket is pulled up, and before she could even think about shivering Eren's warm body engulfs her. He wraps his arms around her waist and pulls her up so he can breathe her in, all of her in the crook of Mikasa's neck.

"Oh yes, oh yes!" He repeats it, over and over and _are those tears she feels?_

She laughs, patting his back, hopefully to calm the poor sob she calls her boyfriend, her soon-to-be-husband. She remembers high school, when he would act tough and get into fights. When he would scream and holler and cause a ruckus and Mikasa was the one who kicked the thugs' asses and dragged _his _sorry ass back home to clean up his wounds.

Look at Eren now. He still holds that mischievous aura around him; a little playful, a little rude, on some occasions even angry, but he's gone soft around the middle. Both physically and mentally, Mikasa probably had a better body than Eren himself.

It's hard to say when Eren went from this to that, or when his real character showed.

Eren pulls back, wiping his nose and his eyes with his arm. He looks absolutely ridiculous at this very moment, so Mikasa laughs and kisses his red nose and slightly puffy eyes.

She smirks and asks-

_"What is your name?"_


End file.
